


Wishing Box

by pixar_was_my_childhood



Series: Ninjago AUs [7]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Related, Canon Rewrite, Character Death, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kai (Ninajgo)-centric, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Out of Character, Prompt Fill, elemental swap between Nya and Kai, only briefly/sorta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixar_was_my_childhood/pseuds/pixar_was_my_childhood
Summary: Cole was dead.There was a chance that the Wishing Box could bring him back but the side-effects could possibly change history and reality alike.Kai is the idiot who used it, now reality and history have been screwed up, and returning it to normal is easier said than done.
Relationships: Cole & Kai & Jay Walker & Zane, Cole & Kai (Ninjago), Cole & Lloyd Garmadon & Kai & Nya & Jay Walker & Zane, Kai & Nya (Ninjago), Lloyd Garmadon & Kai
Series: Ninjago AUs [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048813
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessdragonsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessdragonsun/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Wishing Box](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363292) by [princessdragonsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessdragonsun/pseuds/princessdragonsun). 



> This is from princessdragonsun's Ninjago prompt.  
> I haven't watched S5 in a long time so my apologies if anything's wrong.  
> I'm doing a different style to my usual one (shorter chapters more often).  
> Stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy!

Many years, nearly twenty-five years ago now, a small, long-forgotten company was in the process of developing the Wishing Box. 

The Wishing Box was rumored to be able to grant one wish, and one wish only, to whoever could solve its puzzle and unlock it.

It was pretty easy, right?

_Wron_ _g!_

It was designed as a puzzle-box, and even once the said puzzle had been completed, it could only be unlocked using both the two special shurikens.

It had been so popular after its introduction to the people of Ninjago.

There was someone using it almost constantly.

But when there is that many people using it, there were those who took advantage of its powers (using it for self-centered reasons like more money or to get a promotion at work, you get the point).

Then, after a horrible incident of where two people were fused together and a whole park-full of people were killed in an instant, it was deemed dangerous and a risk to people's safety.

It was securely locked away in an unrecorded and unknown location deep within the mountains by Hiroshi's labyrinth.

Where it remained until two months ago, when some clueless person had stumbled upon it and brought it back to Ninjago

City.

* * *

That day, the Ninja woke to find Cole gone, they didn't think much of it as they suspected the Master of Earth had gone for a walk or simply just out.

He could still be on the Bounty, just invisibly, it made sense, the guy was a ghost after all.

But come five hours later, 11:03 AM and he still hadn't made his presence known meant that Cole was most definitely out somewhere.

"This isn't funny, does anyone have an idea where Cole is?" Nya asked everyone (excluding Cole, obviously) who had all gathered on the deck of the Bounty.

They all came up with nothing of much use.

"No, there was no note, no text, nothing that would inform us of Cole's location," Zane answered. They weren't getting anywhere.

"Cole didn't mention having plans to go anywhere today," Jay told them, they had originally planned on focusing primarily on training today.

"Is there anything we can use pin-point his location? Cameras? Tracker? Social media?" Kai asked, remembering the tracker that they all had clipped behind their right ears.

"When he was...changed, his tracker stopped working. Cameras might prove useful as a last resort, in the meantime, Jay or Kai, keep trying to get in touch with him," Lloyd, who had previously been silent, told them all before they had returned inside the Bounty, where it was warm.

Lloyd had a point, using the cameras to find him was a bit too much but they didn't even know if Cole had his phone on him (he didn't, they learned later).

When they were nearby or inside the main room where the tv was switched on and playing the Ninjago City News channel, a shaky clearly-shot-on-a-phone video came on.

It was footage from a protest, an _anti-paranormal_ protest.

"At the anti-paranormal protests held here today, a man, who appeared to have been a ghost, was doused with a bucket of water by one of the protestors, he seemed to disappear into thin air, simply poof-ed out of existence," the reported said.

Unusually, it wasn't Gayle Gossip reporting, it was someone else.

"Did she say 'a man who was a _ghost_ was _doused_ with _water_?'" Nya asked, rhetorically. It wasn't a question at all, for she already knew the answer.

"Guys, Cole's _dead_ , actually dead," Kai said, no, he whispered from the doorway.


	2. He Can't Be Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole was a ghost, if he was doused in water then he was dead as a doorknob, and they learn of the mysterious, dangerous Wishing Box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I screwed the timeline up royally.  
> Underline & italics is Jay's thoughts. Italics & bold is Kai's. All is everyones'.  
> For a while, I'm not posting/writing the 100 Prompts series.  
> Currently writing the script for a new youtube video on human equality so look out for it if you've subscribed to my channel.

That couldn't be right, it had to be someone else. But there had been no other ghosts in Ninjago City.

"Someone _doused_ him! You saw what happened to Morro when he fell into that water," Kai said, a strange tone in his voice which was so unlike him.

They were all silent, for there was nothing they could say to change the situation.

Jay, who had been on his phone, scrolling through the actually interesting news and come up upon an article from Ninjago City Musem, spoke up.

"Anyone heard about the new display at Ninjago City Musem?"

"Not the right time Jay," Nya hissed, so out of character for her.

"No, it is. It's of something called the Wishing Box-" he trailed off, after reading the name of the item on display from the article.

_No, not wishes again!_

"Listen to this, 'if someone is able to successfully solve and unlock the box, they will be granted one and one wish only," Jay told them.

Kai had the expression of an idea that had hit him like a freight train.

"So this _Wishing Box_ , could bring Cole back?" he asked.

_Yes, it could, but what were the risks?_

_There were **always** risks involved._

"Even if it could bring him back, what would the repercussions be?" Lloyd asked, letting his rhetorical question hang in the air.

**_That was it, nothing_ _they ever did or faced was simply straight-forward._ **

"We've dealt with negative effects from magical things before, how hard could this be?"

_Did Kai remember Naddakan and all that happened? He shouldn't be able to._

Jay and Nya did remember because the former made the wish and the latter was dead in the original timeline.

"Who cares about the repercussions? If there's any chance that it could bring Cole back then it's worth a shot," the Master of Fire argued, once again sounding very out of character.

"I agree with Kai. Cole is our brother, giving it a try is the least we can do," Zane spoke up.

They had almost forgotten the Master of Ice was even there, for he had been so quiet throughout the whole conversation.

"It is,"

"When does this the display for this 'Wishing Box' open?" he asked Jay.

"Today, at noon," the Master of Lightning answered, after locating the opening time and date at the top of the article. That was in less than half an hour.

"Are you planning on _stealing_ the Wishing Box from the museum?" Lloyd asked, with what sounded like an annoyed tone in his voice.

_What was it with everyone and being very out of character today?_

"How else are we going to get it out of there?" Kai said, snapping out the rhetorical question slightly.

A look passed over the Green Ninja's face like he wanted to tell them no, and that they would find another way to get the Box but eventually he settled on...

"Just be careful, don't do anything stupid and get arrested," he warned, heading into the kitchen to grab a drink before returning to his room.

"Don't do anything stupid. Good luck with that, Kai!" That was the last thing Jay said to him before he returned to the game room.

**_Like he was going to do anything stupid._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would anyone like to beta-read this?


	3. Repercussions and Planning

The rest of the Ninja had tried to tell him not to go through with it because of the unknown effects or repercussions it could have.

They had told him "You might destroy Ninjago!" (Lloyd) and "You could completely change the timeline!" (Nya) but no more was said about it.

The possibility of it destroying Ninjago was slim and he didn't want to end up in the same position that Jay and Nya had been in.

An hour or so later, Kai found himself back in his room, scrolling through yet another article about the Wishing Box, one which an old employee at Negai Inc. (the company who had been developing the Wishing Box) had written back when it was at the peak of popularity.

He learned that, after someone had completed the puzzle of the Box itself, there was a lock that could only be unlocked with a special shuriken-like key.

The lock and subsequent shuriken-key was a new feature, added right before it had disappeared as too many people were abusing and taking advantage of its power.

The display in the Ninjago City Museum was where Sensei Yang's _Yang Blade_ had previously been kept as it had been moved to a more secure part of the building.

The Wishing Box was kept under a thick cover of glass and had around-the-clock camera surveillance (that wasn't in the article, Kai learned about it by simply accessing Ninjago City Musem's fully-online security network).

**_He would have to go at night, at about two AM when all the others were certain to be sound asleep._ **

The CCTV wouldn't be too hard to evade, he would just set it to a repeating loop, the live person security and the bullet-proof glass would be harder but not impossible.

**_How were the shuriken-keys used?_ **

He couldn't find anything about the lock or how the shuriken-keys were used to unlock it.

**_No matter, he would just work it out when he got to it._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was hastily written in my English class so I'll come back later to edit.


	4. Retrieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 2 AM, Kai breaks into the Ninjago City Museum to get the Wishing Box while the other Ninja are fast asleep.  
> The NCM should have better security.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next takes place within two/three hours. It might be a while until chapter 5 is published (I have exam week soon so I'm gonna not be posting every day/at all).  
> While writing, I thought it was Lloyd, lmao.

It was irritating waiting until absolutely everyone was asleep, but eventually, they were and he could put his sort-of-but-not-really plan into action.

Kai started at 2 AM because it would allow him enough time to use the Wishing Box and return it to the Museum before it opened to the public for the day.

Before he left the Bounty, he accessed the bridge's computers to set the museum CCTV cameras on a repeating loop, as he wouldn't be able to do it when he was there.

Getting inside the building took little to no effort, he _was_ a ninja after all.

As for the _human_ guards, a simple false-alarm and a broom in just the wrong (right) spot was enough to knock them out.

The cliche laser-rigged security system had a significant weakness and a clear path not covered by thin red beams of light.

_Ninjago City should invest more in its security here, there are precious items kept here._

Getting through the bulletproof glass cover was the hardest part, but yet again, not impossible, the material itself was laced with sensors, and those sensors were linked to alarms and to the Ninjago City Police Department.

Contrary to what the others believed, Kai wasn't as clueless with technology as they deemed him to be.

Both the Wishing Box and the shuriken-key sat on top of a weighted plate, which was most likely linked to the alarms and NCPD just like the glass cover.

He switched it out with a holographic projector (which he had taken from Nya's work table) that he had weighed as accurately as he could without knowing the exact number.

**_Too easy._ **

The holo-projector was the best Borg Tech one you could legally get, it would project a 3D, solid (as long as someone didn't try to touch it) hologram.

It was just a precaution in case the museum opened early or when there was a shift change (he hid the two unconscious guards in a broom closet).

He hadn't thought of how he would fix the glass.

**_Good thing he had grabbed that tube of invisible sealant on his way out the door._ **

Slipping back out past the lasers and out of the building the same way he came, Kai headed back in the direction of the Spinjitzu Monastery.

He wasn't dumb enough to actually go back there with the Wishing Box, no, he was stopping about fifteen minutes out so that he was far enough away from both the city and the Monastery.

**_Time to solve a puzzle._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it going too fast? Is Kai too OOC?  
> Princessdragonsun, is this what you were hoping for?


	5. Too Late Kai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai solves the puzzle but doesn't notice the timer until it's too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been almost a month. I forgot about this fic and life happened.  
> Here's a short update for y'all.

The Box wasn’t all that big, only just larger than a normal-sized basketball. It was made almost entirely out of wood, with metal clamps securing different parts in strange patterns.

It was surprisingly easy, the first thing Kai had to do was flip out one of the corners, then pull out something followed by turning and clicking in some parts that came out shaped like keys.

_ Who designed this thing? _

Soon there were various parts of what, ten minutes ago, had been the Wishing Box, spread on the grass.

As it turned out, there was a sort of mini-box inside of the box that had a key slot and nothing to pop out to insert.

_ This must be what the shuriken-key was for. _

Kai took the silver object that could only just pass as a shuriken from the pocket of his Gi.

He slid it into the keyhole and was pleased when it made a satisfying click, he turned it twice to the left then four times to the right and the mini-box...didn’t open?

_ That wasn’t right, he had gotten the number right hadn’t he? _

Then, to his horror, he saw a minuscule timer counting down from 00:02 to 00:01 the finally 00:00.

_ Shit! _

That time was the last thing he saw before a bright flash of light blinded him.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer sitting on the grass, fifteen minutes away from the Spinjitzu Monastery, he was standing in the monastery's courtyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this fic is 13 pages in my Google Docs.  
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Messing With Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in one day?? (jk I already had this chappie done).

_Where_ _was_ _Jay? Late once again, I suppose._

“Sorry, I’m late!” Jay apologized as he ran in as he finished tying the straps of his Gi and went to stand next to Nya.

“If you are late again, you’ll do extra dawn training,” Garmadon warned as he entered the room to begin today’s dawn training session.

Blue against red.

Silver against White.

Green against Black.

“Why are we always sparring against each other?” Nya asked as she got into position opposite Jay.

“I have no idea, you can speak to Sensei about it if you really want to spar against someone else,” he answered, getting out his katana.

Across the room, Kai and Zane had already started their spar.

“We do so much training, when are we ever gonna actually go fight Wu?” Zane complained as he swung his scythe at the brunet.

“Yeah, it’s been what? Two weeks now and all we’ve done is train, train, train,” Kai agreed, chucking one of his shurikens at the android.

“Silver, White, _focus!_ ” Garmadon yelled at them from across the room.

“Sorry Sensei!” Kai yelled back as their chatter died down. He ran at Zane, after retrieving his shuriken.

  
  


To say that either had any leverage against the other in terms of Lloyd and Cole’s spar would be an over-exaggeration, the two were evenly matched.

“It would be worthwhile for us to do group training,” Lloyd said as he swung his nunchucks and ran at the Black Ninja.

“Yeah, why don’t you speak to Sensei about it?” Cole asked. Lloyd clipped his nunchucks back onto the hook on his side and went over to where their Sensei was sitting, watching all their progress.

“Sensei?” Lloyd asked as he approached and Garmadon looked up.

“Yes, Green?” Why the man insisted he calls them by their colors instead of their names, no one knew.

“It would be beneficial for us to do group training, so we can learn how to better work as a team?” he carefully phrased his sentence.

“Indeed nephew Thank you for the idea,” Garmadon said before he raised his voice to speak to the rest of his students. “As Green had suggested, the rest of today’s training will be done as a group.”

Zane and Nya both complained but participated nonetheless.


	7. Messing With Reality 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ON A FREAKIN' ROLE! (and mentally dead but fk it).

**_Lloyd had jinxed it like he always did._ **

"Wu has been spotted near Jumanikai Village," Nya told them after a shrill beeping tone had sounded from her watch.

“Jumanikai? Again? What would Wu want with that small village?” Cole questioned as everyone grouped together by the doorway.

He put a voice to what was going through everyone’s heads.

“Don’t know but we should probably go find out, just to be sure that Wu isn’t doing anything too...bad,” Kai told them, stepping back into the role of leader.

His teammates all agreed so they took turns to take off as all their Elemental Dragons wouldn’t all fit in the courtyard together.

When they reached Jumanikai village, they found the Dark Lord himself moving through the main street accompanied by his army of Skeletons.

“Where is it? It’s supposed to be here!” Wu hissed, his Aegean-colored eyes searching everything before him. The skeletons were searching through the various shops and even some homes for something.

_**What was he looking for?** _

“Wu!” Kai yelled as he and the other Ninja arrived at the village.

At the sight of the Ninja, he turned to his army of Skeletons and yelled at them, “Hurry up, the Ninja are here!”  
  


Then to the Ninja themselves, he mock-asked, “What do you want?”

“To see what you’re doing down here, oh, and maybe stop you also?” Zane said to him as he and his five teammates’ dragons disappeared and they landed on the ground.

“Like that’ll happen. If you didn’t notice, I am the Dark Lord and have a whole army with me and you are only six teenagers,” As he was speaking, the Skeletons organized themselves into a sort of organized pattern.

“Are we?” Kai’s rhetorical question hung in the air.

The Ninja organized themselves into a more organized pattern than those they were opposing, with Kai, Cole, and Nya at the front, Jay, Lloyd, and Zane at the back.

“How are we doing this?” Nya asked over the comms.

“There are about thirty-something Skeletons, Black and Red, work on picking off the ones on the outside. Blue, White, behind them. I’ll do the ones in the center, Green, behind me,” Kai said as everyone sprung into action to complete his order.

The Skeletons, despite their number of thirty-four, they weren’t very trained and were easy to overpower and defeat.

**_It was just like the training course._ **

Once they all realized that to defeat the Skeletons, they just had to go through the same motions and movements they used to get through the training course, and it was easy as pie.


	8. When Fighting An Enemy, Have a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ninja go to Jumanikai village to fight Wu and his 'army' of Skeletons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm LOVING this AU I've created. I had this written up over a month ago and forgot to post it.  
> Chapter 9 should be out later today or tomorrow.

“Wu, we’ve dealt with your ‘army’, despite what you said before, we aren’t just six teenagers,” Kai said, “Now, are you going to face us or flee back to the Underworld with whatever is left of your ‘army’?” he mock-asked.

“Do you really believe that I’m really just going to retreat back to the Underworld?”

Zane had clearly had enough so he charged at Wu with his scythe raised.

“Zane! No!” Nya yelled, running after her teammate.

**_She should really have a look at Zane’s coding, something was_** ** _definitely_** **_malfunctioning._**

But now wasn’t the time.

Seeing no other option, the rest of the Ninja followed suit to Zane.

Unfortunately, because they dived into this headfirst without a plan, making their movements uncoordinated and predictable to Wu.

Wu had his staff with him, which didn’t help either. His staff gave him extra protection and defense capabilities.

Jay was the only one able to get remotely close to the man, even then, he wasn’t able to land a hit.

“‘Aren’t just six teenagers’?! That was like the work of five very untrained teens!” Wu laughed.

Kai remembered something that Sensei Garmadon had told them all not too long ago.

_ ‘No matter the training, skills, or powers you may have, the element of surprise and to catch your opponent off-guard is your best asset in battle.’ _

“Time for a surprise,” he said into the comms. to let everyone know what he was planning.

“Got it,” along with a few other variations, were said back to him in response.

Their Surprise plan was one of their many back-up plans. It used the tactic of trick movement- convincing your opponent that you are only going to go one way, then changing direction (and often speed) at the very last second.

Sticking with the same groups as before (Kai, Cole, Nya and Jay, and Lloyd and Zane), they put the plan into motion.

The first group circled around Wu in a wide, counter-clockwise motion while the other group waited.

“Now!”

All six ninja moved, those circling, attacked from where they had ended, while those who had stayed stationary leapt forward.

True to its intent, Wu had been caught off-guard for a moment but quickly recovered.

Not even half an hour later, they were back at the Spinjitzu Monastery, Wu had managed to get away once again.

The moment Kai’s shoes touched the stones of the courtyard, he got an odd feeling, it was like something was wrong.

**The fool, it wasn’t ‘something’, rather everything about this…whole reality felt wrong like it wasn’t meant to be like this at all.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone know the actual spelling of Jumanikai? and the name of the Skeletons in S1?


	9. This Isn't Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say earlier, this is set in Season 1 (the AU) and postseason- 5/6 (whichever one that Cole is a ghost for).  
> This was ready to be posted back in JULY and I forgot about it! Sorry, here it is now, 8 months later.

Later that day, when the rest of the Ninja and Garmadon were fast asleep, Kai slipped out of the room and out to the courtyard.

To not be seen by anyone if they were also awake, he climbed up to the roof and took a seat on the tiles.

He created a small ball of water and watched the light of the moon dancing on it, mental scenes of events passed flashed by, only they were different from what he remembered.

One was when their colors were announced, he was announced as red instead of silver, Nya and Lloyd were nowhere to be seen and it was _Wu_ instead of Garmadon.

The next was a montage of moments of Cole being their leader until Lloyd eventually took over.

Followed by a brief view of Zane sacrificing himself.

**_This wasn’t how it all happened!_**

**_It was all wrong!_ **

You know the truth, Kai.

At the very end was a clear unmoving mental picture of a strange box.

**_The Wishing Box_** , his brain supplied randomly.

A sudden sharp cramp in his hand brought him back to the present, he had been holding his hand at an odd position for too long.

“Kai?” Lloyd’s voice called out to him and he saw the blond standing in the courtyard below him.

“What are you doing up so late?” he asked as Kai slid down the roof and climbed back down via the wooden support poles.

“I should ask you the same thing,” Kai shot back.

Lloyd shrugged, “Couldn’t sleep, I was thinking about going for a walk, want to come with?”

“Sure,” He had nothing better to do anyways

They made their way out of the large ornate gates of the monastery and down the steps.

“Lately, have you had a feeling that all this-” Kai meant everything, the whole reality and stuff, “Is wrong like it’s all meant to be different?” he asked.

The other boy was silent for a few minutes, thinking over the Master of Water's question.

“You’re right, I guess. What things do you feel are different?”

“Oh thank you! I thought I was the only one. First of all, me and Nya, our elements. Wu and Garmadon, I feel like Wu is supposed to be good and Garmadon is supposed to be bad,” Kai told him.

Lloyd stumbled and almost went tumbling down the mountainside, “Weird, and how do you know these things?” he asked.

Kai shrugged, the second time in an hour, “There are these memories, I remember events that have already happened but they’re different, some are like I described before and there are the ones where Cole and then you were leading,”

“Cole being our leader?” Lloyd echoed. “Yeah, I can’t quite picture that,”

“Neither can I but why do I remember it then?” Kai asked.

He’s been asking a lot of questions recently.

“Maybe it’ll make more sense in the morning?” this was the blond’s not-so-subtle attempt at saying  _ Kai, we really should be sleeping, especially you with your non-existent sleep schedule _ .

“You’re probably right,” They turned around and headed back up toward the Monastery.


	10. Missing Fire & a Conundrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been over 8 months and I post 2 chapters?? Enjoy?  
> This chapter is REALLY SHORT sorry, I wanted to post it before I forgot about it again.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Nya grumbled as she flopped into a chair.

Two days had passed since they woke to find Kai gone.

“Are you sure there is not a note or anything?” Jay asked.

“Nothing, did Kai say anything before we went to bed? Any plans he had that would have taken a few days?” Zane inquired.

“He didn’t mention anything,”

“Where is he then?!” the Master of Water snapped, “if he’s gone off and done something stupid - we just lost Cole, we can’t lose Kai too,”

“We’re not going to lose him, Nya. Kai’s not dead, not yet at least,” Lloyd tried to reassure his sister.

“How do you know?” asked Jay.

“My elemental power is directly linked to you four’s elements, if Kai had died, I would have felt his Fire go out,” Lloyd explained.

“How does that work? It doesn't explain where Kai is,” Zane said.

“It doesn’t but at least we know he’s not dead,” Jay spoke up. “Have you tried the trackers?” he asked Nya.

“How could I forget that?!” she asked, rhetorically before she spun around and pulled up the trackers’ programs.

A few moments of silence passed between them.

“That’s weird, Kai’s tracker is saying he’s right here, next to you Zane but I don’t see him,” Nya announced.

“I have not detected signs of any anomalous energy in the area either,” Zane added after he completed a brief scan.

"We're back to square one then," Lloyd said.

"We are," Mya agreed.


End file.
